1GzuFGC

youth, can prevent the accumulation of socioeconomicdisadvantage and its transmission acrossgenerations and improve long-term macroeconomicperformance. Governments should:• Support investments in early childhooddevelopment while reducing inequalities arisingfrom the unequal burden of unpaid care anddomestic work on women (see Chapter 3)• Address the vulnerabilities that youth faceby investing in education, implementingemployment policies to create economicopportunities for youth and reducing inequalitiesbetween young women and men (see Chapter 2)• Strengthen reproductive rights, sex educationand access to reproductive health services,especially for adolescent girls and young women,so that they have a broader range of choiceswith regard to childbearing and marriage• Administer regular time-use surveys in orderto monitor the true costs of investing in humanbeings and the impact social policies, such asearly childhood development initiatives, have onthe distribution of unpaid work.DEMOCRATIZING MACROECONOMICS BYSTRENGTHENING WOMEN’S AGENCY, VOICEAND PARTICIPATIONA human rights-based approach to macroeconomicpolicy requires that there is meaningful democraticparticipation, that policy processes are transparentand that governments are accountable for theirpolicy decisions. Strengthening women’s agency,voice and participation is crucial to the achievementof substantive equality, as this Report has shown, andmust be extended to macroeconomic policy-making.Macroeconomic policy formulation is typically seenas a technocratic process, carried out with littleor no direct participation by the different socialgroups affected, including women’s organizations.Strengthening women’s voice in the development ofmacroeconomic policy partly involves increasing theirpresence in decision-making in general. In addition,women’s organizations and associations need to holdpolicy makers to account regardless of whether thosemaking the decisions are women or men. Differentforms of collective action can allow women toquestion current macroeconomic policies and, whenneeded, press for alternatives.The degree of participation in policy-making variesdepending on the specific area. Take the example ofmonetary policy, where women’s voice is particularlysilent in deliberations. Since central banks in mostcases function independently from government,possibilities for participation and accountabilitythrough the state are often limited. As of July 2014,women were in the top leadership positions (e.g.,they were the governor or equivalent) in just ahandful of countries, including Botswana, Honduras,Israel, Lesotho, Malaysia, Russian Federation andthe United States. 115 Women are also grossly underrepresentedon the decision-making bodies ofcentral banks. There is only one woman on the sixmemberexecutive board of the European CentralBank and two women on the 24-member governingcouncil, for example. 116 Women’s representation inkey macroeconomic decision-making bodies mustincrease if improvements in women’s voice areto be realized (see also Figure 4.8). Nevertheless,better representation alone is not sufficient.Women’s interests, especially the interests of themost vulnerable women, must be brought into theseorganizations and political bodies.Participation in macroeconomic decision-makingand the ability to hold governments to accountrequire information. Governments vary in the degreeof transparency associated with their policy-makingprocesses. Consider the example of fiscal policy.Budget processes vary widely in terms of the levelof transparency, illustrated by the variation in scorebetween countries on the Open Budget Index (OBI). 117The OBI 2012 was calculated for a total of 100countries, with scores between 93 and zero. Figure4.7 shows the scores, which range from 93 (NewZealand) to 0 (Equatorial Guinea, Myanmar andQatar). 118 Some countries, such as New Zealand,South Africa and the United Kingdom, have achievedhigh levels of transparency. However, the widevariation in scores underlines that, for others, there isconsiderable room for improving the openness of the